When Dr David Strain encountered a 64-year-old patient on his ward round, the British geriatrician had a bleak epiphany.
Less than six months earlier he had treated the man for Covid-19. Now, his deterioration was painful to witness. “He came in with a stroke and really bad delirium, a precursor of dementia,” Strain says. “I saw the patient, recognised him [and] recognised the fact that his brain had dramatically aged.”